How To overcome anxiety: An active process

When you are diagnosed with anxiety disorder, the goal of your life changes: Now that you want is to overcome anxiety but, how to do it?. The only indispensable “tool” is yourself.

How we know, an anxiety disorder is a bad working of the system called Anxiety. Anxiety is the name of the system, present in all the people, than prevent us about the warnings of the life, Anxiety is the system that aids us to overcome the dangers. Anxiety is a mental system. When our senses feel danger, they inform to our brain and, our mind, activate the anxiety system in order to we can overcome it with better probabilities.

Anxiety is a defensive system of our body. Anxiety is a good system who aids us to overcome the dangers of the life. But the problem is that this system is broken. This system does not help us. Now, this system informs of dangers that don't exist, it comes on without any real danger and this system can't be stopped.

Since anxiety is a mental system, is a process that occurs in our brain, the solution of this disorder will be in our brain. We have to change the way we process the reality.

Why to overcome anxiety actively

Note: Perhaps you are a person who is reading this in order to help a person in your family, to aid a friend. The good news is that this person is a lucky person, in anxiety disorder - like any other disorder -, is very important to have a friend, to have a person that helps us, to have a person who is with us along the way. The problem is that you can only help, accompany: the only one who can this problem, the only one that can overcome anxiety, is the person with anxiety disorder.

Some people could be worried for this. The anxiety disorder is the result of a change in the way we process the reality, but is a change that have occurred without any intervention on our part, we have not done anything, and now, in order to solve this problem: it is necessary our active job?.

The response to this question is definitely yes. The only one that can solve our problem, the only one than can do the necessary changes in the way we lived our life, are us.

Imagine a little boy that have fear to the dark. Really he don't have fear to the dark, that he fears is to not to see, he have fear to the monsters in de dark. The solution is not to get used to the dark, the solution is a change in the way he see the reality: he have to understand that the monsters don't exists, that the monsters are only in his mind and, through this, overcome his fear.

The other persons can aid us in this course, the other people can be with us in this process, but its can't do the job for us. We are the only ones who can make the necessary changes in our way of thinking, perceiving reality.

But this isn't a bad news. We are the only one that we need, and we can do it.

We want to overcome anxiety. In order to deal with anxiety, we need to know, we need to assume, that it isn't free. We have to paid. Maybe not to pay in money, but it is necessary to pay with our sacrifice, with our compromise, with our effort.

Do you want to overcome anxiety?. If the answer is yes, absolutely yes, you must leave the excuses and start down the road now, decisively and with the conviction you have the main tool you need: you.

What Is Anxiety?

Many people talk about anxiety but, really they know what is anxiety?. We need to understand the essence of this disorder to deal with it in a effective way.


When we try to describe the anxiety, we use expressions like:

• I feel dizzy and nausea.
• They hurt the neck.
• I feel a increased heart rate
• I am very nervous and do not know why.
• I can't travel by subway.
• ...

We're not saying what is anxiety. We are focusing on the symptoms of anxiety. These symptoms may be anxiety or other physical disorder. The person listening may think we are not symptoms of anxiety, it can be symptoms of another physical disorder.

In fact, if we had never heard of what is anxiety, the first time we go to the doctor and we told what symptoms we had, we hoped we diagnosed a physical illness, not that we suffered from anxiety disorder.

It is difficult to explain since anxiety can manifest - and it do usually - with real physical symptoms.

To clarify what is anxiety we use sources like Wikipedia:

"Anxiety is an unpleasant state of inner turmoil, often accompanied by nervous behavior, such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints and rumination"

In several web pages:

"Anxiety is a natural part of life, and most of us experience it from time to time. But for some people, anxiety can be extreme." 
"Anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations."
"Anxiety is a normal, if unpleasant, part of life, and it can affect us all in different ways and at different times."

With these ideas we still don't know what is anxiety, then:

what is anxiety? (in a comprehensible way)

First of all we need to know that isn't the same anxiety that anxiety disorder.

What is Anxiety

Though the term anxiety is commonly used to refer to what, really, is the anxiety disorder, we must learn to differentiate it. What really worries us isn't anxiety, is the anxiety disorder.

To understand what is anxiety we have to go back to the first times, when the men didn't have the protection of the modern life, when they had to live exposed to the dangers of the nature. In this situation, they had to develop some system to survive.

This survival system is anxiety. Anxiety is normal. Anxiety is our body system to prepare to successfully overcome dangerous situations. Anxiety is the mechanism that prepares us to flee or fight and thus survive.

We all have anxiety (some more than others). When the student is faced with a test, he have anxiety. When the athletes will start the race, they have anxiety. When we go to a job interview, we have anxiety. Anxiety is normal and beneficial.

What is Anxiety Disorder

As the name of this disorder indicates, the anxiety disorder is a malfunction, a abnormal operation, of the defense system called anxiety.

In some people, the anxiety system stops working properly and is operated when it should not be activated, or they is activated with excessive intensity and, usually, does not know when to stop: this is the anxiety disorder.

Anxiety disorder is a mental disorder because it is our mind who wrongly perceives that there is a danger where none exists and, therefore, the anxiety is activated when it should not.

To describe what is anxiety disorder we must only think of the tension and nerves that has the student before the exam and imagine that this feeling remains multiplied by lot for a long time (an hour, a day, a week, a month, .. .), unable to turn it off.

On this website we will try to teach how to overcome anxiety disorder, but the first step is to make it clear that:

1. Anxiety is normal.
   All people have anxiety and it is estimated that more than 20% of the population has or has had anxiety disorder.


2. Anxiety is not dangerous.
   Anxiety is a defense mechanism, it is to defend us and, therefore, it cannot harm us.


3. Anxiety does not last forever.
   A common fear is thinking that it isn't possible to cure anxiety disorder, which anxiety disorder is an illness that lasts forever.

We should not worry, the anxiety disorder is curable and here we will learn how to overcome it.